It’s rare for such announcements to get our attention, but Land Rover’s revelation that it had become the first global partner for Virgin Galactic was worthy of further investigation. After all, just how can an SUV maker lend expertise to a firm looking to commercialise space travel for the first time?

Officially the deal, announced by JaguarLand Rover marketing chief Phil Popham and Virgin Galactic visionary Richard Branson and CEO George Whitesides alongside the unveiling of the Discovery Vision Concept in New York, is designed to “inspire young people across the globe to pursue careers in engineering, science and technology”.

Land Rover could tell Virgin Galactic a few stories on adventures and creating go-anywhere (on land, anyway) vehicles, but this is not a partnership based on tangible technology exchanges. It’s one all about inspiring future engineers, the kudos of being associated with one another, and for me it was an excuse to find out just what Virgin Galactic is trying to achieve.

Enter pilot Mike ‘Sooch’ Masucci, one of the pilots set to imminently undertake test flights of the Virgin Galactic 'SpaceShipTwo' spacecraft ahead of taking the first customers – the first of which being Branson himself – in the coming months.

Around 700 people have so far paid the $250,000 fee to get on one the flights, which can take up to six people at a time plus four pilots, two to fly the mothership to 50,000ft, and then two to control the rocket that fires off from the mothership and into space – “as high as we can go”, according to Sooch – as it re-enters the Earth’s atmosphere for a safe landing.

The whole experience will last a couple of hours, and ultimately daily flights are planned once production of motherships increases. Costs should come down then, too.

Sooch, an ex-US air force man, has flown up to 70,000ft in his career where less than one per cent of the Earth’s atmosphere remains above you. From up there, you can see the curvature of the Earth. He’s a remarkably friendly, modest and matter of fact man, keen to remind this “really is rocket science” when answering questions on timescales and how close this is to reality.

But this is going to happen – people are going to be able to pay money to fly into space, experience weightlessness, and look down on Earth. Think about that for a moment.

Partnerships like these might often seem irrelevant, but here’s one that we can all admire. After all, it’s engineering projects like this that can get young folk into engineering, and creating the spaceships of tomorrow.

If it exposes them to the Land Rover brand in the process, we’ll have some pretty special cars to look forward to in the future as well.

Join the debate

Is that the same Virgin Galactic that's under investigation for a number of deaths, that allegedly occurred in relation to their ongoing failure, to produce an engine that actually works?

The Virgin Galactic that to date, hasn't had a fully fledged test flight of their sub orbital spaceship and the same Virgin Galactic that should have launched it's first fare paying passengers into space several years ago, but hans't managed to achieve it - with no launch date on the horizon?

I'd have though that Land Rover, a business that seems to be breaking new ground on planet earth wouldn't see any value in aligning with a businesses bereft by problems and seemingly unable to meet it's core target - lifting people off the planet. So, maybe Land Rover should celebrate their own mighty achievements on earth, before looking to inspire a generation by aligning with a failing project, which so far, seems destined to remain a ground based project. And as we all know recognise, there are few better ways to travel around the ground, than by a Land Rover - that's inspiring!